


Pink in the Night

by in_chains_and_flesh_and_leather



Category: Logan Lucky (2017)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-25
Updated: 2021-02-25
Packaged: 2021-03-16 04:21:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,263
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29694954
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/in_chains_and_flesh_and_leather/pseuds/in_chains_and_flesh_and_leather
Summary: The pining is mutual, but they're idiots.Told from both perspectives.
Relationships: Clyde Logan & Reader, Clyde Logan & You, Clyde Logan/Reader, Clyde Logan/You
Kudos: 10





	Pink in the Night

Was there ever a time you weren’t hopelessly in love with him?

When you fall in love, especially when it’s the big one, the one that fills your body from the tips of your toes to the ends of your hair, can you even remember the faces, the names, of anyone else before?

It all seems like nothing, less than dust.

They’re so pale and flat and amorphous, shadows and jokes.

All there is now is Clyde; tall and morose and devastatingly beautiful, dutifully filling up drinks, entrancingly calm and alluringly restrained. It makes your heart hurt, like something is strangling it whenever he is near.

*

 **I glow pink in the night in my room, I’ve been blossoming alone over you**. It’s hard to think of anything else but his hand on you, how he could hold you close, swallow you up in his body and keep you safe there, keep you loved. You could worship every inch of skin, every spot on his body, if only you had him there in your bed as you twist and writhe with his name on your lips and his face behind your lids.

*

 **And I hear my heart breaking tonight, I hear my heart breaking tonight. Do you hear it too?** You sit with your friends because you have no choice but to be here and try to keep your eyes off of him. But he’s still there in the periphery, gliding around, looming over you, like a mountain obscuring a trembling pebble.

Maybe it would be easier to look at him. Be brave, take him in, maybe you could feel strong and like you could conquer yourself. It’s impossible, no matter how hard you push yourself to do it, your body refuses and starts quaking, wanting to cry.

He’s somehow more real, more powerful, in his space, in his bar, owning your heart as much as he owns every table, your blood like he own every drop of liquor that passes the lips of his patrons. He walks nearby and a shiver visibly shakes you, making friends turn to you and ask if you’re okay.

*

You step out onto the porch, the big juicy drops of rain pelting against the asphalt, drumming wet beats and kicking up dust in the dirt nearby until it is drowned and settled. You watch it for a long time, muffling the sounds of the bar, changing the temperature around you, the humidity. For a brief moment, it’s easier to breathe. But the thoughts return, never giving you peace for long. **It’s like a summer shower with every drop of rain singing “I love you, I love you, I love you. Iloveyou, Iloveyou, Iloveyou. iloveyouiloveyouiloveyou”**

Who wouldn’t love him, want him wholly, constantly? Intellectually, it makes sense that not everyone is everyone’s type, but all you can see when you look at Clyde – briefly, from afar - is every desire you’ve ever had incarnate. You can also see all the other eyes on him, lashes batting, teeth flashing, casual hands on arms, shoulders, back, all wanting at least a part of what you do too. Why should it ever be you, out of a sea of possibilities? What would be the odds?

*

You come back inside, dodging questions about your mood and absence and get sent to the bar at the worst possible moment. Not only are you barely holding yourself together anyway, but now you’re expected to face him, wait for the drinks, bring them back in shaky hands without spilling and breaking the glasses and causing a scene.

Clyde is across the bar, serving a patron and you lean on your elbows over the counter, hanging your head to hide your face and take a breath. You look up when you feel steady enough and see him filling up glasses. **I could stare at your back all day, I could stare at your back all day**. He is mesmerizing. You could truly be content just watching him be. Be himself, be happy, be near.

He is so broad and large, but he moves swiftly and easily, never bumping into anything, never being anything other than stealthy, elegant, respectful, quiet. You’re sure your face is betraying the full extent of your stupid longing, so you’re almost grateful he is taking his sweet time with this patron.

This beautiful woman, who’s been hanging around recently, clearly highly interested in him. It must be flattering, you’d be flattered too. They’re all smiles and shameless, relentless eye contact, Clyde being uncharacteristically fidgety during and afterwards.

So this is it. This is what he wants.

It makes sense, you tell yourself, bones feeling like they would shatter.

It’s not like you had him before, not really, face getting hot.

Why should he be all alone and withering away unloved, just because you don’t have him? Just because he doesn’t want you?

Someone snaps him out of it with a joke and he smiles into his chest, turning around to serve the others waiting. He scans the bar and his eyes fall on you first, face changing; he must have noticed whatever humiliating, revealing look you had on.

You push back with your elbows and walk around the bar, dizzy, not feeling the earth under you.

*

Someone is in the bathroom, because of course they are, and you have to wait outside. Fine, anyplace is good enough to break down, just not at the bar itself, at least you made it this far.

You lean on the wall for support, the whole room feeling like it’s turned upside down. Eyes closed tight, hands trying to grip at the flat wall, you feel like you’re spinning and about to collapse.

A hand on your shoulder gives you some sense of up and down and your brain slowly starts to find equilibrium again. You know his scent, though you couldn’t name it off the top of your head, and you know it’s him without needing to open your eyes.

“Are you alright?” – Clyde must sense that you’re dangerously unsteady and he tries to brace you with his flesh hand on your waist, the metal hand barely grazing the opposite shoulder.  
Nothing quickens the onslaught of tears more than the person who caused the pain asking what is wrong. A sob bursts from you and you shake your head, lying completely futile at this point.

Hiding your face behind your hands, wiping the tears does nothing, the sobs keep coming and tears flow continuously.

“Oh, please, don’t cry.” – Clyde says so quietly you think you may have imagined it.

Unable to form words, you try to push on his chest gently to make him leave, but your traitorous body follows your hands, wanting to join them and just rest against him and stay there until you feel better.

Clyde closes the distance between you tentatively, slowly pressing his lips into your forehead when you don’t move, hand going up to cradle your head in it. **And I know I’ve kissed you before, but I didn’t do it right**.

White flashes behind your closed lids at the contact, the warmth and indescribable softness of his lips spreads all over your body and it feels like it is draining all the anxiety, all the heartbreak out. Your hands are up on his shoulders before you can scold them and tell them to stop and he trails tiny kisses down your forehead, the side of your face, into your cheek. – “Whatever it is, it’ll be alright. Please, don’t cry anymore.” – he leans his cheek against yours to speak into your ear and you’re grateful you were crying and shaking already when another shudder, at his closeness, his low voice in your ear, his skin on yours, runs all down your body. He shifts slightly, lips back on your cheek, and you close your hands around his neck, tucked so close into you. **Can I try again, try again, try again?**

Clyde is there for a long time, long enough for fresh tears to stop forming, for your breath to stop getting caught in your throat. Still and warm and comforting, tearing you in two between wanting to hold his massive form crushingly close and also just fall into him let him hold you close, feel his heart beat. The conflict makes you restless, coming out at the fingertips, scratching gently at his neck, gathering the hair there, feeling it slip between your fingers. Then his face is nuzzled into you, like a cat asking for your attention, almost purring into you. You dip your face lower to – to what? You don’t even know, it’s all you can do, heart kicking up, head loud with alarms and thunder. Then you’re face to face and he’s almost pressing his lips into yours, changing the angle, moving in infinitesimally, then away, and when you follow him, he finally dives in. **Try again, and again, and again**.

It starts slow, with a few experimental pecks, feeling each other, the eagerness, breath starting to get shallow. Then more, longer contact, lips parting. His lip between yours, tasting the whiskey he’s had. Tongue swiping between them and legs almost giving out. You grip him harder for support, and because you want all of him at once, deepen the kiss and you can feel nothing but the wet heat slithering in and out and around as you struggle for breath, not wanting to stop. **And again, and again, and again.**

You hear the door click open and move just a little to see if anyone’s coming and Clyde pulls away, only enough that he’s not completely on top of you. The woman looks at you, suspiciously close, leaning against a wall, breathing hard, lips swollen and glistening. Clyde’s ignoring her entirely, stroking at your wet cheek with his thumb, wanting to see those tears disappear once and for all, but all three of you know you’re not fooling anyone. He watches her blend in with the crowd out of the corner of his eye and takes a breath. – “Did you…” – he points at the bathroom with his head and you chuckle, shaking your head. You suspect he knew you just wanted to get away from the crowd, and lean into his hand when it comes up to your cheek, giving him the perfect angle to kiss you again.

***

**Clyde's POV**

***

Clyde’s met all sorts of people in his life.

Poor working class people, funny, talented people, beautiful and hideous, powerful and powerless. He was always quietly piecing together an image of humanity.

So at the bar, he notices everything, even when he’s not looking.

The forlorn men having a quiet drink after a long day.

The neglected wives trying to get some attention with loud makeup and cleavage.

The men out looking for trouble.

He can understand most of these things, but so much of the time, he is on the outside. Observing them and collecting them into his mind, but not entirely living them.

And things remain one way, like they’ve always been and seem to show no signs of ever changing, until, inevitably, they do.

Someone walks in one night, and more nights after that, and it’s all he looks forward to – elated when it happens, utterly flattened when it doesn’t.

When he gets a conversation, a few moments or minutes alone, he replays it in his head dozens of times, zoning out and feeling his ears heat up, while still coming up with better things he could have said or more things to say in the future.

The air has a different flavor, he feels like he could float up to the ceiling, he feels like he can talk and relax and things make sense.

*

The cauliflower scheme came out of nowhere. One day, he was living his normal life, maybe receiving one or more insults or blows than on the average day, and the next he was very likely on the course to throwing his life away. But at least it was something to do, not just live the same day over and over.

He thought about going for it many times.

She spoke so nicely to him and when she laughed with her friends, it made him smile every time. She remembered the things they talked about and, regardless of his unshakeable belief that fortune did not favor him and the many imperfect circumstances of his life made him less than desirable, he still saw it and still felt it.

Saw the looks to the other patrons, the averted gazes when some over-enthusiastic woman got a bit too handsy, her eyes falling on parts of him that piqued her interest – hair, eyes, lips, shoulders, and more that he tried not to think about outside of his bedroom. Felt the tension and excitement when they talked, the nerves when someone interrupted that they’ll see how they both mooned over the other, the reluctance to leave when it just started to get good.

He wouldn’t burden anyone with what he was about to do, and all the attendant dangers and risks, wouldn’t make himself her man, if she wanted him in the first place, only to get himself tossed into prison. Make her sad, embarrass her in front of the world. He would have to be patient, just a little bit longer.

But it wouldn’t be just a little bit, now, would it?

It would be a few months. And then more after the heist, just to make sure things were safe. And that is assuming the best possible outcome. Maybe it would be years. And maybe, he thought with dread and desperation, it would be never. Maybe after he pulled that stunt, she would want nothing to do with him. Or even if she did, what if they got caught? Then the odds went to virtually zero.

With all those questions and with fear, cold and hard and jagged in the pit of his stomach, he went to work. **I glow pink in the night in my room, I’ve been blossoming alone over you**. He made a promise to himself; if she’s there, he’ll talk to her, even if he stutters or can’t take his eyes off the floor; if they talk, he’ll ask her to see him in private; if she does, he’ll do something, anything. He just couldn’t resist and couldn’t let the chance pass him by, knowing his circumstances would soon be much worse and he was at his best right now, even if it wasn’t much.

So the night before he changed his life forever, he smiled and talked to her, asked her to meet him outside in a few minutes, discreetly slipping out the back and sneaking up to the porch. He had no game or anything smooth to say, he didn’t want to waste time on that. Words came out of him and he was too beside himself to remember what they were, but they were honest and in a flash, he was in her arms.

Every spot her eyes had roamed before had some of her on it, lips on his, a hand in his hair, running through it over and over, the other sliding over his shoulder, his back, every curve he’d watched from afar now pressed into him.

He felt…beautiful? Did that make sense to say? Like he was so wholly desirable to this exquisite woman, like she saw him in the way he saw her. The tenderness she gave him and the abandon with which she gave it were like nothing he could remember experiencing before.

He kissed her for a long time, not sure how long, but definitely too short for his liking, and he started to worry that someone would come looking for one or both of them.

*

After his stint in prison, he eventually started working again.

Nervous to show off his new arm, nervous to face people again, with fresh ammunition to fire at him, new looks and new jokes at his expense.

Most of all, he was nervous to face her. Or face the fact that she may not return at all.

For days and days, she did not, her friend group congregating at the bar on their regular nights without fail, just one member short.

Just when he decided he would have to accept the worst outcome had occurred – and recognized how little he had really believed it would; oh, he loved to be all doom and gloom and overly cautious, but deep down, it was just tempering his expectations, always more optimistic and dreamy than he cared to admit – he was dealt another blow.

She strolled in one night, hanging on the arm of a friend, a woman, he spied with relief dousing the jealousy that sparked, never casting one glace towards the bar.

She looked stern and serious for a while, back unnaturally straight, quieter than usual, but eventually she relaxed, joined in the conversation, the drinks loosening her tongue and her throat, her laughter spilling out. It was beautiful to hear, and it hurt like hell. **And I hear my heart breaking tonight, I hear my heart breaking tonight. Do you hear it too?**

***

He punishes himself with ugly thoughts.

Sure, he tries to remember that wonderful night when he was as light and free as the air, and the weight of the whole world wasn’t crushing him under it. When he felt like anything was possible and love could fill him up until he exploded, then put him back together.

But he’s in the shower and he should just be able to do it, get in out of the way, scratch an itch, god knows he’s got enough images of her to think about. But when he tries, he just sees another man, whole and better, rich because he earned it, not stole it, someone whose arm she could hang on in public and never suffer a sidelong stare, in his place.

So he gives up, mood heavy and sapping all the life from him, the stream of water pelting his skin and running all down his defeated body. **It’s like a summer shower, with every drop of rain singing “I love you, I love you, I love you, Iloveyou, Iloveyou, Iloveyou, IloveyouIloveyouIloveyou”**

*

Sarah’s been coming to the bar recently. Good looking gal. Talks to him all the time. Just gets it somehow, it’s easy. And he’s not above flattery and attention, especially now that he feels like he’s either never meant anything to her or that he’s easily cast aside even if he did. So he lets her talk, flirt, ask him questions, toast with him.

But she smiles like a shark and doesn’t blink. She sits up so straight it gives him a backache. She interrogates rather than chats.

He’d much rather be talking to…someone else.

 _Someone else_ is up at the pool table, and he cranes his neck to look. It might come off tawdry if anyone sees, but it’s the only chance he gets to look at her at all. When she comes up to the bar, which is all too rare, her eyes run from his and fix anywhere but him, with stilted smiles and the ghost of what they never discussed sitting between them.

She stands back up and looks o the right at the jukebox, twirling the cue in her hand absent-mindedly. And he just looks, and remembers, and covets. **I could stare at your back all day, I could stare at your back all day**.

*

She comes back in and he recognizes the silhouette, the way she walks, even in his periphery. The rain is beating outside and she probably smells fresh, like the earth and the clouds, and he gets to do nothing about it.

He gets to talking to Sarah and she’s giving him indirect propositions and compliments, hooking into him with predatory eyes and never letting him get far from her. He’s being polite, taking the compliment, trying to feed his diminished ego and wounded heart, but it’s all just smoke and ash.

Someone makes a joke about other people than his sweetheart waiting, and he takes the opportunity to leave, smiling at the comment and how wrong it is.

He turns to the opposite side, seeing who’s there and for a second, he catches a sincere look. She shoots something devastating right into his eyes, through his chest and out his back, a hole gaping in him even before she can manage to hide it and run off.

He pours drinks for someone else, mind on that wobbly, fast step he saw, talking himself out it. He can’t follow her, he’d look like a creep.

Seconds tick slowly and he’s yelling at himself to act proper, to let her be, to rethink it and convince himself he saw wrong. But he has not been a creep so many times that he has become a stranger and it turns out being a stranger is more painful.

So he decides he’ll go, just stroll by, say he’s looking for someone if she asks, leave if she tells him.

*

She looks so wounded and disoriented, clinging pitifully to the wall, face screwed up and heartbreaking to behold.

Before he can negotiate with himself, his hand is reaching out, the prosthetic following. Thinking she might it distasteful to be touched by it, he barely lets it make contact, focusing more on steadying her with her with the good hand. - “Are you alright?” – he asks, knowing the answer is no, but he has to start somewhere.

Hands fly up to hide her face and the pained sound he hears as the tears come raging out is possibly the worst sound he’s ever heard. – “Oh, please, don’t cry.” – the words come out reflexively, before they were even thoughts in his head.

He knows how it feels, even if he doesn’t know why she’s crying. He’s wanted to fall apart similarly many times before. He knows what he would do if… **And I know I’ve kissed you before, but I didn’t do it right**. God, she tries to absolve him of responsibility to care for her, as if a push of a hand could stop it, but she leans in as well, the need for comfort outweighing pride and strength. He can’t hold her fast enough, thoroughly enough, but he steels himself and approaches only incrementally, lips burning and tingling in anticipation.

It’s heaven to feel that skin again, the proximity warming his bones. Her hands rest on his shoulders and he is just that much closer, whooshing in his ears as blood surges to his head.

She cries harder, but holds on tighter, and he moves gradually down, making sure his lips have touched every spot on the way to her ear. – “Whatever it is, it’ll be alright. Please, don’t cry anymore.” – he’d do anything to make it right, so long as he never heard that sob again. He just needs half a chance, to be all he could be, wants to be for her.

He wants to stay a little longer, body suddenly feeling alive, so he does, as the tension releases, as the tears stop coming, as breathing steadies. It’s too short and he hasn’t had enough, but it’s about time to let her be, before he starts crossing any more lines.

Her hands move on his neck and he feels like a live wire, one big buzzing nerve. **Can I try again, try again, try again?** Next thing he knows, he’s begging for more touch, losing his head, and she’s so close, he could combust. He teases himself, tests her by almost closing the distance, and the room feels like it’s spinning. When she reaches for him, only one whit, there’s no stopping. The kiss blossoms from the giddy kind, the contact electric, shocking, to the more deliberate, deeper, merging, delicious. **Try again, and again, and again**. That same feeling from the time before returns and he feels so good, it’s satisfying and intoxicating, and he feels good about himself. Like he can be proud and loved and cherished because someone small and deficient and unworthy doesn’t get held and kissed like this.

He doesn’t hear the door open behind him, his heart is pounding too loudly in his head, but he feels the panic in her lips and her lashes brushing his skin as her eyes fly open. He backs away, the wet pop still echoing in his ears and looks nowhere but that stunning face, with every emotion written on it, and he wants to hear about all of them, especially the one that makes her breathing ragged and eyes barely focused.

While the woman shuffles behind them, her attention and amusement palpable, he busies himself with wiping any remaining moisture on her face and reveling in the feel of his hand on her skin. He tries to keep the breath he takes from turning into a sigh, knowing he’ll have to return to work now and how on god’s green earth is he supposed to think about anything else tonight?

“Did you…” – he points towards the door, thinking it might be easier to part if she left because he’s not letting go of his own volition. She chuckles and says no, and he understands she only needed some privacy. But he hopes what he gave her and what he’d like to offer in the future is better than that. She leans into his touch and how is supposed to resist kissing her again? **And again, and again, and again**.

*


End file.
